Heron Bay HOA: fees, leasing rules and what matters at closing

The master association's estoppel on every home, and a second one from the Neighborhood association where the home is in a Neighborhood that has one. Find the Neighborhood from the plat and block in the legal description, then read across:

The managers come from the list of Neighborhood managers on the master association's website, checked 28 September 2026; each Neighborhood's page gives the phone number. The fees marked in bold were each adopted by amendment, and some carry questions about how they were adopted; the Neighborhood's page sets them out. The master's rules — the Capital Payment, one lease in any 12 months, tenant registration — apply to every row, Saltgrass included.

The master association must issue an estoppel certificate within 10 business days of a written or electronic request (Fla. Stat. § 720.30851); the fee caps and what happens when an association is late are on our page about HOA approvals and estoppels. The association's manager is KW Property Management & Consulting, named in its 2024 recorded notice (Instr 119854426, p. 2) and on its website, which gives an on-site office at 954-575-2200 and sends estoppel requests to HomeWiseDocs. Each Neighborhood association has its own manager, named in the table above and on its page.

A Capital Payment on every resale, paid by the buyer. It "shall be considered an Assessment", so an unpaid one can be liened (Declaration § 8.6(b), added by Instr 114476411, p. 4). The amount has changed three times:

From 30 June 2017 to 23 June 2022 it was a flat $1,000 (Instr 114476411). Which figure applies turns on the amendment in effect on the closing date.

• It is due on every resale, not once per lot. The original declaration charged it only once per lot; that limit was deleted in 2017 (Instr 118232027, p. 2).
• The Neighborhood may charge its own. The Falls ($1,000), The Pointe ($500) and Saltgrass ($1,500) each add a fee at closing; see the table above.
• The seller's assessments are prorated as usual, and the Neighborhood association's assessments are separate from the master's.
• Heron Bay Commons, the clubhouse, is owned by the North Springs Improvement District, not the association (OR 30030/1215; OR 42824/523). Its costs reach owners through the district, so look for NSID assessments on the property tax bill rather than the estoppel.

Yes, on the terms the owners adopted in 2017 (Declaration § 3.39 "Leasing", Instr 114476411, p. 3):

• an owner may lease "one (1) time during any twelve (12) month period";
• tenants and other occupants must be registered with the association before they move in;
• the association may require a tenant security deposit of up to $1,000, and an unpaid deposit is treated as an assessment;
• every lease is subordinate to the association's lien, and the association may evict a tenant who violates the documents, at the owner's cost.

Some Neighborhoods add their own limits — Heron Cove bars leasing for 24 months after a transfer and requires approval of every lease; L'Hermitage, The Fairways and Villa Sorrento require approval; and several set a minimum term. The table above has them.

Leasing rules adopted after 1 July 2021. A rental amendment enacted after that date generally binds only owners who take title after it, or who consent to it; limits on leases shorter than six months, or on leasing more than three times a calendar year, bind everyone (Fla. Stat. § 720.306(1)(h)). The master's 2017 rule predates that and binds every owner. A rule recorded after 6 April 2026 would not be on this page, so for an investor buyer we search forward from that date before saying what applies.

No. The master documents give the association no right to approve a sale and no right of first refusal. Two things still matter:

• An entity buyer names one person or family. An owner that is a corporation, partnership, trust or other non-natural person must designate one person or family to exercise its use and voting rights, and may change the designation no more than once every six months (Declaration § 5.4, p. 40).
• Some Neighborhoods go further. L'Hermitage and Villa Sorrento declare a sale made without their estoppel certificate void; Mizner Village and Saltgrass bar a conveyance until their estoppel is received; Cypress Pointe requires approval of an entity buyer's occupants.

• The buyer owes what the seller did not pay. A Chapter 720 owner is jointly and severally liable with the previous owner for assessments that came due up to the transfer, whether or not a lien was recorded (Fla. Stat. § 720.3085(2)(b)). The estoppel is what protects the buyer, not the lien search.
• The lien itself attaches when a claim of lien is recorded. The declaration's lien covers assessments, late fees, interest, collection costs and attorney's fees, and is effective "only from and after the time of the recordation" of a claim of lien (Declaration § 6.2 as amended, Instr 111917345, pp. 3–4).
• Fines show on the estoppel, not in the search. Fines run up to $100 a day per continuing violation, capped at $1,000 in the aggregate (Declaration § 2.8(g) as amended, Instr 111917345, p. 2), and a fine of less than $1,000 may not become a lien (Fla. Stat. § 720.305(2)).
• Bank-owned resales. The Tenth Amendment says a first mortgagee that takes title by foreclosure or deed in lieu takes it free of earlier assessments "to the extent permitted by law" (Declaration § 6.7(b), Instr 110416293, p. 2). Chapter 720 separately limits a first mortgagee's liability for them to the lesser of 12 months' assessments or 1% of the original mortgage debt, where the association was joined in the foreclosure (Fla. Stat. § 720.3085(2)(c)). Which rule governs a particular sale is for underwriting; the estoppel shows what the association is claiming.
• Certificates of non-compliance. The association's Architectural Review Committee may record one against a home whose improvements break the declaration (Declaration § 3.2.1(q), Fifth Amendment, OR 30695/447). They are recorded under the owner's name, so the owner search finds them.
• Unapproved exterior work can be ordered removed, and the cost becomes an assessment against the lot (Declaration § 3.2.1(h), (o), OR 30695/443, 446). Ask about open architectural violations when ordering the estoppel.
• The declaration was preserved in time. Covenants that predate a lot's root of title — a title transaction at least 30 years old — are extinguished unless an exception applies (Fla. Stat. § 712.04); an association preserves them by recording a notice (§ 712.05). The association recorded one on 17 October 2024 (Instr 119854426), before the declaration turned 30. It lists 41 instruments but not the 2011, 2013 or 2016 amendments, which matters only from 2041, and it lists no Neighborhood declaration: Long Cove's, Heron Bay Three's and Heron Bay Four's covenants are now more than 30 years old, and we found no preservation notice for them. Whether they still bind a particular lot turns on that lot's chain of title, which is why we examine it on each file.
• The easement window has closed. The declaration let the developer and association record utility easements along a 6-foot strip on every lot line for 30 years (Declaration § 10.1(b), Second Amendment, OR 25991/835). That power ended on 11 December 2025; easements recorded before then stand.
• An open question on the Capital Payment amendments. The Tenth Amendment requires the developer's written consent to any amendment that changes "the assessment structure pertaining to any Plot" while it still owns land in the community (Declaration § 10.9(b)(8), Instr 110416293, p. 2). None of the owner-adopted Capital Payment amendments carries that consent, and whether the developer still owned land when each was recorded is not in the documents. We raise it with underwriting rather than decide it.
• A plat citation error. The supplement bringing in Heron Bay Central cites "Plat Book 1710, at Page 23" (Instr 101969718), and its 2004 correction substitutes Plat Book 173, Page 92, which is Heron Bay Northeast's plat (Instr 104164040). The plat is Plat Book 171, Page 23. Both name "Heron Bay Central"; whether that needs a corrective instrument is for underwriting.
• School impact liens on Heron Bay Three and Heron Bay Four. Each plat was recorded with an Educational Impact Lien Agreement in favor of Broward County that liens the whole plat until the school impact fees are paid or released, and is released by a recorded County satisfaction (OR 24213/65; OR 24291/831). We hold no release of either, and the 2011 and 2017 County certificates recorded against the Heron Bay Four plat only confirm its name. On a lot in L'Hermitage, The Pointe, The Fairways, The Enclave, Mizner Village, Tuscany or Villa Sorrento, the title search should turn up the County's release; if it does not, it goes to underwriting.
• Two designated Neighborhoods were never brought in of record. Casa Del Sol (Heron Bay Six) and Grand Bay (Blocks A and B of Heron Bay Northwest) were designated as Neighborhoods in 2000 (Instr 100102150, 100102151), but no recorded instrument we hold commits their lots to the declaration, and neither plat lies inside any tract a supplement describes. Whether the master's covenants, lien and Capital Payment bind those lots is a question for underwriting; we also ask the master whether it assesses them.
• After closing, send the association the recorded deed. A new owner's membership rights "shall not become effective until the new Member presents the Association with a recorded copy of the Deed" (Articles of Incorporation Art. 5(B), Declaration Exhibit B, p. 76).

• The golf course was never part of Heron Bay. The declaration excludes it, and owning a home gives no right to use it (Declaration §§ 2.1(a), 2.5, pp. 9, 14–15). Since 1997 the golf course owner may also enforce some of the declaration's rules — walls, fences, height variances and golf course nuisance — against lots next to the course (OR 27435/727). Part of the former course is now Saltgrass; see the question below.
• Conservation areas. Some lots abut or partly contain wetland or buffer areas under recorded conservation easements, which may not be altered (Declaration § 3.39 "Conservation Easement", Ninth Amendment, OR 40836/390–391).
• The association can be amended by a small minority. Since 2013 the declaration can be changed by owners of 25% of the Contributing Plots with a Board majority (Instr 111917345, p. 5), and the by-laws by the Board alone. Four owner amendments have been recorded since 2016.
• An owner more than 90 days behind on any payment loses use privileges, as do the owner's tenants and guests, until it is paid in full (By-Laws Art. III § 2, Instr 114020102, p. 4). Paying off the seller's balance at closing ends it.

• Vistas. 89 lots in Heron Bay Northwest (Plat Book 167, Page 17), designated a Neighborhood in 2000 (Instr 100102149) and brought under the master declaration in January 2001. No association of its own appears in the records or on the manager's list, so it is probably administered by the master — confirm on the master estoppel.
• Casa Del Sol and Grand Bay. Designated as Neighborhoods in 2000 (Instr 100102150, 100102151) on Heron Bay Six and Heron Bay Northwest, but no recorded instrument we hold brings their lots under the master declaration. On a closing there we ask the master whether it assesses the lot and refer the question to underwriting.
• Heron Bay Northeast and Heron Bay North Plats 2–4. Annexed to the master between 2004 and 2015, with no Neighborhood declaration in the records. North Plat 4 dedicates its roads and open space to the master itself; North Plats 2 and 3 reserve their streets for an association they do not name, and the Heron Bay Northeast plat names none. Confirm on the master estoppel whether a second association applies.